The traveller who, by chance, finds himself in the quaint old town of Ulverston with a few hours at his disposal will find no difficulty in occupying them pleasantly and profitably. In the busy capital of Furness he is on the very threshold of that great storehouse of English scenic beauty, the Lake Country; almost at his feet is the broad estuary of the Leven, and beyond, spreads Morecambe Bay with its green indented shores, presenting alternately a flood of waters and a trackless waste of shifting sand. In that pleasant region there is many a picturesque corner, many a place of historic note, and many an ancient building that wakes the memories of bygone days.

One of the historic sites, and certainly not the least interesting, is within the compass of a short half hour's walk—Swarthmoor Hall, for years the resort, and, for a time, the home of George Fox, the founder of the Society of Friends; and scarcely less interesting is the primitive-looking little structure that stands within a few hundred yards of it, the first regularly constituted meeting-house in which Fox's disciples, the "Friends of Truth," or the "Children of Light," as they were indifferently called, worshipped. The locality is one he always loved. Here he gained his most enthusiastic converts, achieved his greatest triumphs, and suffered his severest persecutions; it was here, too, he won his faithful wife, and here, also, in the later years of his life, he loved to retire to recruit his weakened energies and prepare himself for a renewal of his arduous work.

It was a warm summer's evening when we set forth upon our short pilgrimage; the air was unusually clear, a dreamy quietude spread around, and the sun, as it declined towards the west, glowed grandly upon the distant woods and fells. As we slowly mounted the ascending road we could see the lonely sands gleaming in the mellow light, and the broad expanse of water that lay far out in the offing calm and smooth as a mirror; while in rear, and upon the right, the wild mountains stood out in picturesque disorder, dark, rugged, and forbidding, save where here and there a golden radiance brightened their loftiest peaks. A short distance beyond the railway we turned off the road and struck into a pleasant meadow path on the right that soon brought us to a green and bosky dell, at the bottom of which a mountain stream, the Levy Beck, meandered freakishly beneath the embracing trees, prattling with the rough boulder stones and aquatic plants along its course, and telling its admiration in a never-ending song of gladness as it rippled onwards towards the sea. The little bowery, untrodden nook is just the place for fays and fairies to secrete themselves, the spot of all others where John Ruskin would expect to catch sight of Pan, Apollo, and the Muses. Every sight and sound is suggestive of peaceful quietude, and, while the lazy wind stirs the over-arching branches for the warm sunshine to steal through, we are tempted to linger in the vernal solitude, watching the playful ripples on the water and listening to the gentle murmuring around——

An old-fashioned bridge bestrides the stream, and the stump of a tree offers an inviting seat. While we stay to contemplate the scene, the soft zephyrs that play about and the alternate sunshine and shade as the light clouds float overhead induce a dreamy forgetfulness of outer things. Then we are up again, and, crossing the stream, follow a rough and miry cart-way that climbs up the opposite height, and brings us in a few minutes to the breezy summit.

Swarthmoor, for that is the name, possesses historic renown. It lies just where the parishes of Ulverston, Pennington, and Urswick join each other, and is said by tradition to have derived its name from the Flemish general, "Bold Martin Swart," or Swartz, a valiant soldier of noble family, who, in 1487, with Lord Lovel and the Earls of Lincoln and Kildare, encamped here with an invading army of 7,000 German and Irish troops, who had landed at the Pile of Fouldrey with the object of placing Lambert Simnel on the throne of England. But tradition in this instance, is at fault; for the name has a much earlier origin, and is met with as Warte as far back as the time of Duke William of Normandy. At a later date, when the soldiers of King Charles had entered Furness and "plundered the place very sore," as the old chronicle has it, Colonel Rigby, the Parliamentarian commander, temporarily withdrew from Thurland Castle and started in hot pursuit; and we are told that the Roundheads, after stopping on Swarthmoor to pray, marched on to Lindale, a couple of miles further, where they fought with such vehemence and resolution that the unlucky Cavaliers were put to flight.

But Swarthmoor has other and more peaceful associations. On reaching the summit of the moor, which is now enclosed, you see in front of you a large, irregular, and somewhat lofty pile of building, of ancient date, which, though by no means pretentious in its outward appearance, still wears an air of sober dignity that well accords with the memories that gather round. Evil times have fallen upon it, and it is now occupied as a farmhouse; but in its pristine days it was successively the home of Judge Fell and George Fox. From the high table-land on which it stands you can look round upon a scene but little changed from what it must have been when the father of Quakerism gazed upon it, more than two centuries ago. The old hills and the wild fells still lift their heads to the breezes of heaven; the tide ebbs and flows over those broad sands as it did of yore; there are the same bleak moorlands, the same broad fields, the same crops of golden wheat, and the same sun ripening for the harvest; but how changed are all human affairs since earnest George Fox, "the man in leather breeches," discoursed in Ulverston church, and Judge Fell's wife "stood up in her pew and wondered at his doctrine, for she had never heard the like before."

The hall evidently dates from the latter part of Elizabeth's reign, and, though it has been altered from time to time to meet the wants of successive occupants, it still retains many of the architectural features of that period. The roof is gabled; the windows are square, with the usual latticed panes and heavy mullions and transoms—they have in places been bricked up, but their original position may be determined by the moulded dripstones which still remain—and on one side a square bay of three storeys projects from the line of the main structure, the only feature specially noticeable in the building. Externally the place has a forlorn and neglected appearance, and exhibits unequivocal signs of heedless indifference and unseemly disrespect. It is partially surrounded with barns, shippons, and outhouses, and heaps of refuse and farmyard litter strewn about give an air of meanness and disorder that but ill accord with its earlier associations as the abode of a vice-chancellor and circuit judge.

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We loitered about for some time, and then, pushing back the gate, crossed a little enclosure which seems to have been at some time a garden, but is now only so by courtesy, and entered by a narrow doorway a passage that communicates with the "hall." Though shorn of its original proportions, it is still a spacious apartment; plain, however, to a degree, and exhibiting the gloomy character common to many houses of the Tudor period; it has a plain flagged floor, some remains of oak wainscotting, and a huge fireplace that seems to have been intended to make up in warmth what was lacking in cheerfulness. In this room the earlier meetings of the Friends were held, and here it is said that for forty years they were in the habit of assembling, after which the chapel on Swarthmoor was built by George Fox's order and at his cost. On one side of the room is a deep embayed recess with a slightly raised floor—a cosy nook, with mullioned and quaint latticed windows lighting it on three sides, and here is preserved an old-fashioned oak desk, a treasured relic of the great reformer. A couple of stone steps lead into a small and dimly-lighted room which tradition affirms to have been the study of Judge Fell and afterwards of George Fox. The upper chambers are large and airy, and one of them, more pretentious than the others, exhibits some remains of ancient ornamentation. An old four-post bedstead of carved oak, on which it is said that Fox slept, still remains, and we were told that the privilege of sleeping upon it is never denied to any member of the Society of Friends, but that it is one very rarely availed of. From one of the chambers on this floor a door opens to the outside, though at a considerable distance from the ground, leading to the belief that there has been at some time or other a projecting balcony, and it is said that within the memory of persons still living there was such a projection with a sort of canopy above it. It is commonly affirmed that from this elevated position Fox was wont to address his followers assembled in the garden below, when the number was too large to admit of their being conveniently accommodated in the house. We were standing upon the self-same spot where the hardy, earnest, and fearless, though imaginative and rhapsodical, Puritan preacher stood more than two hundred years ago, while on the green sward below, the little band of his own faith listened with wondering awe to the outpourings of his prayers and the torrent of his eloquence, and worshipped with silent, contemplative, "waiting" reverence of soul. As we gazed upon the scene the events of that period of tumult and strife crowded upon the memory. A more fitting time for our visit could hardly have been chosen. The shadows were drawing on, and the soft, mellow sunshine fading into the warm grey light of evening, seemed to wrap every object in its dreamy embrace; the distant hills were fading from view and a calm and solemn stillness prevailed that well accorded with the impressive memories associated with the place.

Of the early history of Swarthmoor Hall comparatively little is known. Shortly after the commencement of the troublous reign of the first Charles, it was in the occupation of Thomas Fell, a barrister of Gray's Inn, and afterwards a justice of the Quorum, a worthy legal brother and contemporary of Sir Matthew Hale. Though nominally a Churchman, the owner of Swarthmoor strongly inclined towards Independency, and, on the breaking out of hostilities, took the side of the Parliament party, but he does not appear to have at any time engaged in active military operations, though it is more than probable his house afforded hospitable shelter to Colonel Rigby and his friends, when they and their small army marched to Lindale Close to give battle to the Cavaliers under Colonel Huddleston. The year in which the first shot in that great struggle was fired, an ordinance was addressed by the Parliament to Lord Newburgh, Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, requiring him to place certain gentlemen named on the Commission of the Peace for the county, and the name of Thomas Fell occurs among the fourteen mentioned. Three years afterwards (1645) he was returned with his neighbour, Sir Robert Bindloss, of Borwick Hall, as representative in Parliament of the borough of Lancaster. When the Parliament found itself sufficiently powerful to sequestrate the estates of those who had taken up arms in the cause of the King and had refused to take the National Covenant, committees of sequestration were appointed, and on the 29th of August, 1645, Mr. Fell was named on the one for dealing with the estates of "Delinquents" in the county of Lancaster. In 1648 he, with Colonel Assheton and Major Brooke, was deputed to organise the defence of the county against the anticipated advance of the army of the Duke of Hamilton; in the succeeding year he was appointed to the office of Vice-chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster; and he was also named as one of the judges of assize for the circuit of West Chester and North Wales. His name also occurs in 1650 on the commission for the survey of Church livings and the provision of a competent maintenance for preaching ministers in the several parishes throughout England and Wales. Fell was much esteemed in his own locality, and is described as a wise and learned man, incorruptible as a judge, honoured and feared as a magistrate, and beloved by his neighbours.

In 1632 John Fell took to himself a wife in the person of Margaret Askew, a lady of good family and exemplary piety, the daughter of John Askew, of Marsh Grange, in the adjoining parish of Dalton-in-Furness, he being at the time 34 years of age, and his bride not quite 18. Mrs. Fell inherited an historic name that she was in every way worthy of, her great-grandmother being Ann Askew, the most notable of the victims of the horrible persecutions which dishonoured the closing years of the reign of Henry VIII. Ann Askew was well known at Court, if indeed, she was not actually employed about the person of Queen Catherine Parr, whose Lutheran tendencies were more than suspected, she herself being an avowed believer in the reformed doctrines. She had been married against her will, and had been discarded by her bigoted husband on account of the strength of her convictions. Her religious zeal outran her discretion, and, having expressed her opinions of the doctrine of transubstantiation with imprudent frankness, she was subjected to an examination by the Bishop of London; she escaped on that occasion, but was subsequently examined before the council, when she was less fortunate, being sentenced to be burnt at the stake in Smithfield after having undergone the torture of the rack. The barbarous scene is thus described in a letter addressed by a London merchant, Otwell Johnson, to his brother at Calais:—"Quondam Bishop Saxon (Shaxton), Mistress Askew, Christopher White, one of Mistress Fayre's sons, and a tailor that came from Colchester or thereabouts, were arraigned at the Guildhall, and received their judgments of my Lord Chancellor (Wriothesley) and the council to be burned, and so were committed to Newgate again. But since that time the aforesaid Saxon and White have renounced their opinions; and the talk goeth that they shall chance to escape the fire for this viage. But the gentlewoman and the other men remain in steadfast mind; and yet she hath been racked since her condemnation, as men say; which is a strange thing in my understanding. The Lord be merciful to us all." Burnet says that he had seen an original journal of the transaction in the Tower, which shows that "they caused her to be laid on the rack, and gave her a taste of it;" but he doubts the accuracy of the statement of Fox, the martyrologist, that the Chancellor, when the Lieutenant of the Tower refused "to stretch her more," threw off his gown, and himself "drew the rack so severely that he almost tore her body asunder." Lord Campbell gives this horrid story without noticing the doubt of Burnet, and adds that Griffin, the Solicitor-general, assisted in the detestable crime. Let us hope that in this case human nature was not so utterly degraded as the somewhat credulous historian of the English martyrs has represented. There was a disgusting scene in Smithfield which soon followed the torture of the high-minded woman, who, amidst her sufferings, would not utter one word to implicate her friends. Upon a bench under St. Bartholomew's Church sit the Lord Chancellor, the Duke of Norfolk, the Earl of Bedford, the Lord Mayor, and other dignitaries. There are three martyrs, each tied to a stake. The apostate Shaxton is to preach the sermon. It is rumoured that gunpowder has been placed about the condemned to shorten their sufferings. The Chancellor and the other high functionaries have no compunction for their victims, but they are in terror for their own safety. Will not the exploding gunpowder drive the firewood where they sit? They hold a grave consultation, and are persuaded to sit out the scene. The gentlewoman and her fellow sufferers die heroically—a noble contrast to the cowardice that quakes in the extremity of its selfishness upon the bench under St. Bartholomew's Church. Such was one of the scenes that marked the closing days of the life of Henry the Eighth.[1]

Ann Askew had a son, William, who became heir to the Marsh Grange estate on the death without issue of Hugh Askew, on whom it had been bestowed by the crown in 1542. This William had a son, John, the father of Margaret Askew, who, before she had well attained to womanhood, became the wife of Lawyer Fell, and the mistress of Swarthmoor. Margaret Fell, as we shall see, proved herself a worthy great-granddaughter of the martyr Ann Askew.

The period that immediately preceded the great and bitter conflict in which many of the dearest interests of England were involved, and much of her best blood shed, was one of great religious activity and excitement. The seeds sown at the Reformation had ripened, and there had been a steady continuity and successive advance towards Calvinism and the rejection of all ceremonial not directly authorised by Scripture. The Church had been purged of the most flagrant of the Romish superstitions, but the Book of Common Prayer retained many things in the ritual it enjoined which, to those who assumed a superior sanctity and claimed to hold the Bible as their only rule, were held to savour of Popery and idolatry. Preferring to do what was right in their own eyes, they rejected the Liturgy and the Episcopal form of government. They disliked the surplice and would not wear it, and they objected to many of the ceremonies the Church prescribed. There were great divergencies of opinion; the public mind was much exercised with the controversies that arose; and the feeling of hostility was increased by the intolerant and persecuting spirit manifested by the authorities of the day. The Puritans, as they were called, had gained considerable ascendancy, and, though they had not withdrawn themselves from the Church, they had become a powerful party within its pale, and asserted their peculiar views with much tenacity. It is difficult to say what a more moderate policy might have produced, but the determination of Laud to reduce them to submission, instead of serving the interests of the Church, only drove them into more open resistance, and converted religious enthusiasts into political agitators.

Such was the condition of religious parties in England at the time when Thomas Fell and his youthful spouse became the occupants of Swarthmoor Hall. At that time there was living in the little rural hamlet of Drayton-in-the-Clay, in Leicestershire, a weaver of the name of Christopher Fox, a zealous attender on the ordinances of the Church, and who, from his integrity and piety, was known among his neighbours by the sobriquet of "Righteous Christer." His wife, Mary Lago, was a woman imbued with strong religious feelings, well read, and of an education superior to that usually possessed by persons in her station of life. To this couple was born a son—George Fox—who at the time of Thomas Fell's marriage with the great-granddaughter of the martyr, Ann Askew, was eight years of age. His childhood and youth were passed in the quietude and seclusion of his Leicestershire home, with little idea of the great world beyond or the questions that were then stirring the minds of men. He grew up silent, pensive, and thoughtful. After receiving a scanty education, he was placed with a relative who combined the several occupations of wool dealer, shoemaker, and grazier. In pursuing his humble calling, young Fox frequently attended the country fairs, but, finding his occupation distasteful, he forsook his wool dealing and sheep-herding and betook himself to the neighbouring town of Lutterworth, the place from which, two centuries and a half previously, John Wycliffe had sent forth his itinerant preachers—the "Poor Priests," as he designated them—who traversed nearly the whole kingdom, disseminating his opinions as they went. Of a taciturn and meditative turn of mind, with no settled occupation, but possessing an earnest desire for holiness, Fox became unsettled in his views and controversial in his habits. He conferred with one divine after another in his efforts to obtain light and peace—Churchman and Presbyterian, Independent and Baptist, each in their turn, but could not satisfy himself with any. He remarks: "Neither them (the Episcopalians) nor any of the dissenting people could I join with, but was a stranger to all, relying wholly upon the Lord Jesus Christ." As Macaulay says: "He wandered from congregation to congregation; he heard priests argue against Puritans; he heard Puritans harangue against priests; and he in vain applied for spiritual direction and consolation to doctors of both parties.... After some time he came to the conclusion that no human being was competent to instruct him in divine things, and that the truth had been communicated to him by direct inspiration from heaven." He had spent much of his time in studying the Scriptures alone, in the fields and orchards, and in the deep gloom of his native woods, and in this way had acquired a ready aptitude in quoting particular texts. Believing that the time had arrived for promulgating his own peculiar views of Christian truth and ecclesiastical polity, he wandered from place to place disputing with some and rebuking others. In 1647 he began to hold meetings, and astonished those who heard him by his earnestness and fluency of speech. The quiet pastoral regions of the Trent Valley and the Derbyshire hills formed the scene of his earliest labours, and here Quakerism may be said to have had its birth. At Nottingham, seeing the church upon a hill, he went there, and found, as he expressed it, that "the people looked like fallow ground, and the priest like a great lump of earth stood up in the pulpit above." He interrupted the preacher, and for doing so was cast into prison. On regaining his liberty he proceeded to Mansfield-Woodhouse, where he was again "moved to go into the steeple-house and declare the truth to the priest and people;" but the people fell upon him, put him in the stocks, and threatened him with "dog-whips and horse-whips." Continuing his itinerant ministry, we next find him at Derby, where, in accordance with his usual practice, he proceeded to church, and after the service stood up to address the people. For uttering "blasphemous opinions" he was taken to prison, and brought before Justice Bennett, whom he bade to "tremble at the word of the Lord," an expression which caused the magistrate to apply to him the term Quaker—a nickname that has ever since attached to his followers, who previously had designated themselves the "Children of Light."

After these rough experiences he visited Yorkshire, traversed the picturesque Wensleydale, Grisedale, and Lunedale, and thence passed into Westmoreland. Here, on the high fells between Kendal and Sedbergh, he preached a sermon memorable in the annals of Quakerism. It was delivered from the summit of a weather-beaten rock adjoining the bleak moorland chapel of Firbank, whither a great company of zealous preachers and laymen had assembled from the surrounding district for a conference. Fox preached a sermon of three hours' duration, and with such earnestness that many of his hearers in their enthusiasm resolved to devote themselves to the work of promulgating his views. In all, it is said that about sixty energetic preachers formed the harvest of this northern mission, who traversed the country on foot, spreading the Quaker doctrines over the entire kingdom, many of them wearing out their lives in the hardships, privations, and persecutions they had to endure. Journeying southwards, Fox climbed to the top of Pendle Hill, which rises within the borders of Lancashire. "As we travelled," he says in his Journal, "we came near a very great hill, called Pendle Hill, and I was moved of the Lord to go up to the top of it, which I did with difficulty, it was so very steep and high. When I came to the top, I saw the sea bordering upon Lancashire. From the top of this hill the Lord let me see in what places He had a great people to be gathered. As I went down I found a spring of water in the side of the hill, with which I refreshed myself, having eaten or drunk but little for several days before." The spring is still there, and in the neighbourhood is commonly known even at this day as George Fox's Well.

The district comprehended within his view became the scene of his most important labours. He spent several years among the pleasant valleys of the Lune and the Kent, and along the breezy shores of Morecambe Bay. In his wanderings he never missed an opportunity of rebuking the "priests," in their "steeple-houses." At Staveley, close by the foot of Windermere, he disputed with the minister, and was roughly treated in consequence. The same afternoon, at Lindale-in-Cartmel, a picturesque spot a couple of miles north of Grange, he, with more prudence, waited till the service was over before he commenced his harangue. Thence he proceeded to Ulverston; his fame had gone before him, and the people flocked to listen to his utterances. The visit was a memorable incident in his life, for it was the occasion on which he first met the courtly but courageous woman who afterwards became his wife. He was taken by a friend to Swarthmoor Hall, where he stayed all night; the next morning being a fast-day, he attended service at the old church of St. Mary's. When he entered, Lampitt, the Puritan vicar, whom he describes as "a high notionist, who would make it appear that he knew all things, was singing with his people; but his spirit was so foul, and the matter they sang so unsuitable to their states, that, after they had done singing, I was moved of the Lord to speak to him and the people"—a practice that was sometimes permitted in that age, provided it was done with courtesy and decorum; conditions, however, that Fox did not always observe. It must have been a stirring scene; the tall and powerfully-built "man in leather breeches"—the stern, uncompromising reformer, who had almost turned the religious world upside down—clad in his strange, [Pg 17] [Pg 18] [Pg 19] uncouth garb, wearing his broad-leaved immovable hat—which, by the way, had not then become the accepted badge of Quakerism—his long, lank hair depending upon his shoulders, and his eyes flashing with light as he declaimed against "hypocritical professors," and "hireling priests." Standing on one of the seats, he delivered a stirring address on the necessity of sincerity in religious profession. The people marvelled at his eloquence, and many of them were moved by his earnestness. As he proceeded the fervour increased and rose to a pitch of intense excitement, the heart of many a listener was touched, and the stifled sob and the heaving sigh told of the powerful effect of his utterances. Judge Fell was not there, being away at the time discharging his judicial functions on the Welsh circuit, but his wife, Margaret Fell, was present, and her heart was stirred by the enthusiasm of the preacher. "I stood up in my pew," she says, "and wondered at his doctrine, for I had never heard such before;" and then, after describing the sermon, she adds, "I saw clearly we were all wrong; so I sat down in my pew again, and cried bitterly; and I cried in my spirit to the Lord, 'We have taken the Scriptures in words, and know nothing of them in ourselves.'" Fox's hearers were not, however, all moved by the same spirit. Justice Sawrey, who was amongst the congregation, denounced the intruder, and ordered him to be taken away, but he continued his address until he was forcibly removed, and then preached in the churchyard, when a crowd gathered round, maltreated him, and drove him out. According to his own version his sufferings were cruelly severe. He thus describes in his Journal the scene that occurred on the occasion of another of his visits to the "steeple-house" at Ulverston:

The people were in a rage, and fell upon me in the steeple-house before his (Justice Sawrey's) face, knocked me down, kicked me, and trampled upon me. So great was the uproar, that some tumbled over their seats for fear. At last he came and took me from the people, led me out of the steeple-house, and put me into the hands of the constables and other officers, bidding them whip me, and put me out of the town. Many friendly people being come to the market, and some to the steeple-house to hear me, divers of these they knocked down also, and broke their heads, so that the blood ran down several; and Judge Fell's son running after to see what they would do with me, they threw him into a ditch of water, some of them crying: "Knock the teeth out of his head." When they had hauled me to the common moss-side, a multitude of people following, the constables and other officers gave me some blows over my back with willow rods and thrust me among the rude multitude, who, having furnished themselves with staves, hedge-stakes, and holme or holly bushes, fell upon me, and beat me upon the head, arms, and shoulders, till they had deprived me of sense; so that I fell down upon the wet common. When I recovered again and saw myself lying in a watery common, and the people standing about me, I lay still a little while, and the power of the Lord sprang through me, and the eternal refreshings revived me, so that I stood up again in the strengthening power of the eternal God, and stretching out my arms against them, I said with a loud voice: "Strike again! here are my arms, head, and cheeks!" Then they began to fall out among themselves.

Whilst we honour the great Quaker evangelist for the unfaltering testimony he bore to his principles and admire his honesty and fortitude, it must be admitted that he provoked much of the persecution he was subjected to by his obtrusive and intolerant disputations, and his disregard for ministerial authority and ecclesiastical sanctities.

Swarthmoor Hall, the home of the Fells, was then known far and wide for the hospitality of its owner, and to none was a heartier welcome accorded than to the professors and teachers of religion. The evening following his first harangue in the church at Ulverston Fox was a guest within its walls; at the request of his hostess he preached to the family and servants, and with such effect that the whole household became converted to his principles. Two or three weeks afterwards Mrs. Fell's husband returned to his Lancashire home. As he crossed the trackless waste of the Leven Sands, the only way at that time from Lancaster into Furness, a company of his friends and neighbours went out to meet him and apprise him of the events that had occurred at Swarthmoor in his absence. "A deal of the captains," writes Margaret Fell, "and great ones of the county went to meet my then husband as he was coming home, and informed him that a great disaster was befallen among his family, and that they were witched, and that they had taken us out of our religion; and that he might either set them away, or all the country would be undone." The judge, as may be supposed, was greatly concerned at the intelligence and much incensed against the man who had "bewitched" his family and wrought such trouble in his house. Mrs. Fell told her husband the true state of things, and at night Fox, who was still in the neighbourhood, was sent for. On his arrival he answered all his interrogator's objections in so satisfactory a manner that the judge "assented to the truth and reasonableness thereof;" he set forth in detail the points of his new doctrine, and inveighed against the conduct of the clergy. Margaret Fell thus records the result of the interview:—"And so my husband came to see clearly the truth of what he spoke, and was very quiet, that night, said no more, and went to bed. The next morning came Lampitt priest of Ulverston, and got my husband into the garden and spoke much to him there; but my husband had seen so much the night before that the priest got little entrance upon him." The judge must have been greatly impressed with the arguments of his guest, for from that time he offered no further objection to the Quakerism of his household; though he himself remained a Churchman to the end of his days he was a steady friend to the members of the new sect and its founder on all occasions when it was in his power, and in token of his sympathy gave them permission to hold their meetings in his house, there being no other place in the neighbourhood where they could assemble. "He let us have," said his wife, "a meeting in his house the next first day after, which was the first public meeting that was at Swarthmoor; our meetings being kept at Swarthmoor about thirty-eight years, until a new meeting-house was built by George Fox's order and cost, near Swarthmoor Hall."

The "new meeting-house" remains to this day, and is still resorted to for religious worship by the Friends of Ulverston and the surrounding district. It is a modest, unpretending structure, standing within a little walled enclosure, and, of course, perfectly unadorned. In the house, which forms part of the structure, is still preserved the Bible given by Fox, with the original chain by which it was fastened to the reader's desk, and also his "great elbow chair."[2] We passed through the open gate into the flagged space in front to make a sketch of the building, on which at the time of our visit the sun was casting its evening benison of golden radiance. In front is a small gabled porch with a panel over the doorway bearing the inscription:—"Ex dono, G. F., 1688," the year of English freedom. That modest little structure, unostentatiously religious and impressive in its simplicity, was to us more "spirit-moving" than many a more pretentious monument. In that lowly building Quakerism was cradled.

The Quakers may almost be called a Lancashire sect, for the palatine county was the scene of the earliest and most successful labours of the founder, and it was from the immediate district that the largest accessions to their ranks were obtained, results that were no doubt largely due to the influence which George Fox acquired over the household at Swarthmoor, and to the protection and encouragement given to him by Judge Fell himself. After the disorderly scene in Ulverston Church and churchyard, Fox proceeded to the market place, where he was subjected to the same rough treatment, and beaten with sticks until he lost consciousness.

On recovering his senses he returned to Swarthmoor, where he found the inmates of the hall busy dressing the heads of the Friends who had tried to protect him from the violence of the mob in the town.

A fortnight afterwards he visited the Isle of Walney, off the adjacent coast, where he met with similar treatment, so that his friends had to hurry him back to the boat for safety; but here they found themselves in a dilemma, for when they attempted to land on the other side the people of Dalton "rose up with pitchforks, flails, and staves, to keep him out of the town, crying 'Kill him, kill him, knock him on the head, bring the cart and carry him away to the churchyard.'" Mrs Fell, hearing of his misfortune, sent a horse to convey him to Swarthmoor, when Thomas Fell issued warrants against his assailants, some of whom deemed it expedient to leave the country. Shortly afterwards warrants were issued by two magistrates, Sawrey and Thompson, against Fox himself for having spoken blasphemy, and he was required to appear at the sessions at Lancaster to answer the charge. Thomas Fell and Colonel West were present, and stood him in good stead on the occasion, pointing out the discrepancies in the evidence and reproving the witnesses. The charge could not be sustained and Fox was liberated, having achieved a triumph in that he had had an excellent opportunity of proclaiming his principles to a large assembly of the local magistracy. After the sessions he held a meeting in the town and gained many converts, among them being Colonel Gervase Benson, Major Ripon, then mayor of Lancaster, and Thomas Briggs, who afterwards became an active missionary among the Friends and accompanied the founder when he went out to the West Indies in 1671. Having held several meetings in the town, in spite of the threats of the "baser sort of people" to throw him over the bridge into the Lune, he returned to his old quarters at Swarthmoor, but was not long before he found that another information had been laid against him. At the following assize at Lancaster, Windham, the presiding judge, directed a warrant to be issued, but Colonel West, the clerk of assize, spoke boldly in his defence, and resolutely refused to prepare the warrant, and so the matter fell to the ground.

From Lancaster Fox again returned to Swarthmoor, and occupied the closing months of the year (1652) in visiting various parts of North Lancashire and adjoining parts of Westmoreland, exhorting the people, declaiming against "steeple-houses," and unceremoniously interrupting those who taught therein by loudly contradicting their statements of doctrine and proclaiming them to be "hypocritical professors." Before quitting Swarthmoor he addressed several vigorous protests to the local magistrates and ministers, especially those who had been the most active among his opponents, including Sawrey and Lampitt, the vicar of Ulverston, and some of the epistles he was "moved" to write it must be confessed were not remarkable as manifesting a spirit of meekness and forgiveness. Thus he writes to his old enemy, Sawrey:—"Thou was the first stirrer up of strikers, stoners, persecutors, mockers, and imprisoners in the North, and of revilers, slanderers, railers, and false accusers! How wilt thou be gnawed and burned one day, when thou shalt feel the flame, and have the plagues of God poured upon thee, and then begin to gnaw thy tongue because of the plagues! Thou shalt have thy reward according to thy works. Thou canst not escape. The Lord's righteous judgments will find thee out."[3] Lampitt, the Puritan vicar, he designates "a deceiver, surfeited and drunk with the earthy spirit," and "a right hypocrite in the steps of the Pharisee," adding "when thou art in thy torment (though now thou swellest in thy vanity and livest in wickedness) remember thou wast warned in thy lifetime...."

Having thus cleared his conscience to the priest and people of Ulverston he went into Westmoreland, but returned in the spring of 1653 to his friends in Furness, and about this time he writes in his Journal:—"Being one day in Swarthmoor Hall, when Judge Fell and Justice Benson were talking of the news, and of the Parliament then sitting, which was called the Long Parliament, I was moved to tell them, that before that day two weeks, the Parliament should be broken up, and the Speaker plucked out of his chair. And," he adds, "that day two weeks, Justice Benson coming thither again, told Judge Fell, that now he saw George was a true prophet, for Oliver had broken up the Parliament." That event, which will be ever memorable in the annals of England, occurred on the 20th April, 1653; Colonel Worsley, Manchester's first parliamentary representative, on a signal from Cromwell, entered the house with a force of 300 men, expelled the members from their chamber, and "took away the bauble," and so the Long Parliament, which for twelve years, under a variety of forms, had alternately defended and invaded the liberties of the nation, fell by the parricidal hands of its own children without a struggle and without regret.

From Swarthmoor Fox travelled further north, visiting Cumberland, Durham, and Northumberland, where he frequently came in contact with the Baptists, a sect that had anticipated many of the doctrines and much of the system of discipline adopted by the Friends, and many of whom became followers of Fox. In the border city he preached in the Castle, at the Market Cross, and then went into the "steeple-house," where a tumult arose. "The magistrates' wives," he says, "were in a rage, and strove mightily to be at me;" then "the rude people of the city rose and came with staves and stones into the steeple-house, crying 'Down with these round-headed rogues.'" For interrupting the services in the church he was committed to gaol and subjected to many hardships; Wilfrid Lawson, a predecessor, but not an ancestor of the present baronet of that name, who was then high sheriff, "stirred them up to take away his life," and his peace was disturbed at night by "a company of bitter Scotch priests, Presbyterians made up of envy and malice" and "foul-mouthed." He lay in the prison at Carlisle for several months. On regaining his liberty he passed into Westmoreland, and thence to his constant friends, the Fells, of Swarthmoor.

Fox had now fought and won the decisive battles of his life; Quakerism had become an established fact, and had taken a firm hold on the minds of many of the people in the north, and not a few of the converts had begun to preach the new doctrines in other parts of the country. Having, as he considered, concluded his great pioneering work, he took his departure from the hospitable mansion at Swarthmoor in the spring of 1654, and travelled through the midland and southern districts of England. While in his native county, preaching, disputing, and holding conferences, he was taken prisoner by a company of the Parliamentary troopers, and sent by Colonel Hacker to Cromwell under the charge of Captain Drury. When in the presence of the Protector, at Whitehall, he exhorted him to keep in the fear of God; and Cromwell, having patiently listened to his lecture, parted with him, saying, "Come again to my house, for if thou and I were but an hour a day together, we should be nearer one to the other. I wish no more harm to thee than I do to my own soul." Fox found a friend in Cromwell, and on another occasion, when he and some of his friends had been dispersing "base books against the Lord Protector," as Major-General Goffe informed Thurloe, Cromwell sent the Quaker away, on receiving from him a written promise that he would do nothing against his government.

The age was characterised by much religious enthusiasm and extravagance. George Fox and his "quaking men in their leather coats" were becoming formidable from their increasing numbers, and attracted much attention. Their opposition, obstinacy, and self-sufficiency, too, in denying the authority of Presbyteries and Synods, and all ecclesiastical officers, frequently brought them into collision with the magistrates. So numerous had they become that it has been computed there were at this period seldom fewer than I,000 of them in prison, some for disturbing the peace, some for refusing to pay tithes, and others because they would not do violence to their principles by taking the oath of allegiance or uncovering their heads in the presence of the magistrates. So frequent and severe were the prosecutions to which the Friends were then subjected that Margaret Fell addressed several letters to Cromwell, drawing his attention to the sufferings they were compelled to undergo. In one of them, written in 1657, she warned the Protector that the wickedness of the oppressor would come to an end, and praying that his understanding might be lightened, and that he might exercise justice and judgment without fear, favour, or affection.

In the three years from 1654 to 1657 Fox travelled over nearly the whole of the south of England and Wales. In the autumn of 1657 he turned his steps in the direction of Swarthmoor, passing through Chester and Liverpool on the way, and calling at Malpas; whence he proceeded to Manchester. His reception in the last-named town he thus describes in his Journal:—

Thence we came to Manchester; and the sessions being there that day, many rude people were come out of the country. In the meeting they threw at me coals, clods, stones, and water. Yet the Lord's power bore me up over them, that they could not strike me down. At last, when they saw that they could not prevail by throwing water, stones, and dirt at me, they went and informed the justices in the sessions; who thereupon sent officers to fetch me before them. The officers came in while I was declaring the word of life to the people, plucked me down, and haled me up into their court. When I came there all the court was in disorder and noise. Wherefore I asked, where were the magistrates that they did not keep the people civil? Some of the justices said they were magistrates. I asked them why then did they did not appease the people, and keep them sober? for one cried "I'll swear," and another cried, "I'll swear." I declared to the justices how we were abused in our meeting by the rude people, who threw stones, clods, dirt, and water; and how I was haled out of the meeting and brought thither, contrary to the instrument of government, which said, "none should be molested in their meetings that professed God and owned the Lord Jesus Christ;" which I did. So the truth came over them, that when one of the rude fellows cried "he would swear," one of the justices checked him, saying, "What will you swear? Hold your tongue." At last they bid the constable take me to my lodging; and there be secured till morning, till they sent for me again. So the constable had me to my lodging; and as we went the people were exceedingly rude; but I let them see "the fruits of their teachers, and how they shamed Christianity, and dishonoured the name of Jesus, which they professed." At night we went to a justice's house in the town, who was pretty moderate; and I had much discourse with him. Next morning we sent to the constable to know if he had anything more to say to us. And he sent us word "he had nothing to say to us; but that we might go whither we would." "The Lord hath since raised up a people"—he adds—"to stand for His name and truth in that town over those chaffy professors."

From Manchester he went to Preston, and thence to Lancaster, where, at his inn, he met with his former friend, Colonel West. Shortly afterwards he crossed the sandy shores of Morecambe Bay to Swarthmoor, where, he says, "the Friends were glad to see me;" and, he adds, "I stayed there two first days, visiting Friends in their meetings thereaways."

From Swarthmoor he went through Westmoreland and Cumberland into Scotland, where he remained some time, visiting Edinburgh, Glasgow, Stirling, Dunbar, the Highlands, and other places; returning through Durham and Yorkshire into Furness, where for a few weeks during the winter he was again the guest of the Fells. In the beginning of 1653 he made another journey into the southern counties, and on that occasion he had another interview with Cromwell—a very brief one, and his last, for it was a few days before the Protector's death. In his Journal he tells us something of the great man's appearance at the time when London was gay with ambassadors extraordinary from France, and Mazarin's nephew was assuring the Protector of the profound veneration his uncle had for him—"the greatest man that ever was." But the day was passed for pomps and flatteries.

"Taking boat," says Fox, "I went to Kingston, and thence to Hampton Court, to speak with the Protector about the sufferings of the Friends. I met him riding into Hampton Court Park; and before I came to him as he rode at the head of his life guard I saw and felt a waft (or apparition) of death go forth against him; and when I came to him he looked like a dead man. After I had laid the sufferings of the Friends before him, he bid me come to his house. So I returned to Kingston, and next day went to Hampton Court to speak further with him. But when I came he was sick, and—Harvey, who was one that waited on him, told me the doctors were not willing I should speak with him. So I passed away, and never saw him more."

Carlyle thus characteristically comments upon Fox's narrative:—

"I saw and felt a waft of death go forth against him." Or in favour of him, George? His life, if thou knew it, has not been a merry thing for the man, now or heretofore! I fancy he has been looking this long while to give it up, whenever the Commander-in-chief required. To quit his laborious sentry-post, honourably lay up his arms, and begone to his rest—all eternity to rest in, George! Was thy own life merry, for example, in the hollow of the tree, clad permanently in leather? And does the kingly purple, and governing refractory worlds instead of stitching coarse shoes, make it any merrier? The waft of death is not against him, I think—perhaps against thee, and me, and others. O George, when the Nell Gwynne defender and two centuries of all-victorious cant have come in upon us, my unfortunate George.

Cromwell died on the 3rd September; and in little more than one short month Fox lost another, and that his truest, friend. For some time previously the health of Judge Fell had been declining; on the 8th of October he passed away from the scene of his earthly labours, and a few days later was buried by torchlight in a grave under his family pew, in the old church of St. Mary, at Ulverston.

Writing long afterwards, his widow, Margaret Fell, thus recorded her loss:—

We lived together 26 years, in which time we had nine children, and one that sought after God in the best way that was made known to him. He was much esteemed in this country, and valued and honoured in his day, by all sorts of people, for his justice, wisdom, moderation, and mercy.... He was about 60 years of age. He left one son and seven daughters, all unpreferred; but left a good and competent estate for them.[4]

By his will, which bears date September 23, 1658, he left various legacies in trust for poor and aged persons in the parishes of Ulverston and Dalton, and also for the maintenance of a schoolmaster at Ulverston. Among other bequests is one to his "very honourable and noble friend, the Lord Bradshaw" (John Bradshaw, the regicide), of "ten pounds to buy a ring therewith, whom I humbly beseech to accept thereof as all the acknowledgment I can make, and thankfulness for his ancient and continued favours and kindness undeservedly vouchsafed unto me since our first acquaintance." Bradshaw did not live long to wear the memento of the departed judge's friendship, for within a year he had found a grave in the mausoleum of kings at Westminster.

Under the provisions of Thomas Fell's will, Swarthmoor Hall, with its appurtenances and fifty acres of land, were reserved to the use of his widow during the remainder of her life, or until such times as she should marry again, when the property was to pass to Daniel Abraham, the husband of his daughter Rachel. Mrs. Fell remained in the occupancy of the old mansion, and the meetings of the Friends were held in the house weekly, as they had been during the judge's lifetime. It was not, however, until after the Restoration that George Fox paid another visit to the place. In 1660, he returned from the south, and, after holding a general meeting for all the Friends in Westmoreland, Cumberland, and Lancashire at Arnside, he proceeded once more into Furness, and took up his abode at Swarthmoor; but he had scarcely done so when Major Porter, then mayor of Lancaster, issued a warrant for his apprehension. He was forcibly carried away from the hall to the constable's house at Ulverston, where he remained for the night; and the following morning was conveyed across the sands to Lancaster, when he was committed by Porter on the charge of being "an enemy to the King, and that he had endeavoured to raise a new war, and imbrue the nation in blood again." In vindication of his innocence, Fox denied that he was "a disturber of the nation's peace;" and affirmed that he was "never an enemy to the King, nor to any man's person upon the earth." Margaret Fell, who considered that an injustice was done to herself by his removal from her house, also addressed a letter of remonstrance to "all the magistrates concerned in his wrong taking up and imprisoning;" and, failing to obtain redress, determined on proceeding to London, in order that her case might be laid before the King.

"Having a great family," she says in her "Testimony," "and he being taken in my house, I was moved of the Lord to go to the King at Whitehall; and took with me a declaration, and an information, of our principles; and a long time, and much ado, I had to get to him. But, at last, when I got to him, I told him if he was guilty of these things, I was guilty, for he was taken in my house; and I gave him the paper of our principles, and desired that he would set him at liberty, as he had promised that none should suffer for tender consciences; and we were of tender consciences, and desired nothing but the liberty of our consciences. Then, with much ado, after he had been kept prisoner near half a year at Lancaster, we got a Habeas Corpus, and removed him to the King's Bench, when he was released."

To send the delinquent Quaker all the way to London guarded by a party of horse was a serious matter, and after much deliberation George Chetham, of Clayton and Turton Tower—a nephew of Humphrey, the founder of the Chetham Hospital at Manchester—who was then sheriff, to avoid the expense of conducting his prisoner, liberated him on his promise to appear before the judges in town on a day fixed. From Lancaster he went straight to Swarthmoor, where he stayed two or three days; and then set out for London, passing through Cheshire and Staffordshire, and holding meetings at several places on the way. When he arrived in London "multitudes of people," he says, "were gathered together to see the burning of the bowels of some of the old King's (Charles I.) judges, who had been hung, drawn, and quartered." The following morning he proceeded to the King's Bench, and, pulling out of his pocket the writ charging him with embroiling the nation in blood and making a new war, presented it to the judges, who, as may be supposed, were a good deal astonished and amused at the inconsistency of paroling a prisoner accounted such a dangerous personage, and permitting him to travel a distance of 250 miles without guard or restraint. None of his accusers appearing, and there being nothing sufficiently serious to warrant his committal, the matter was referred to the King, who at once gave orders for his release.

In the summer of 1663 Fox was again at Swarthmoor, when, after a brief stay, he went over to Arnside to attend a meeting, and thence travelled through Northumberland and Cumberland, returning to the hospitable home of Mrs. Fell in the autumn of the same year. On his arrival he was informed that Colonel Kirkby, a neighbouring justice and a member of Parliament, had, on the preceding day, sent his officers to search the house in the expectation of finding Fox there. Undismayed, Fox went the next morning to the colonel's house, Kirkby Hall, when he found the Flemings, of Rydal, and several other of the neighbouring gentry assembled to take leave of the colonel before his departure to London to attend to his Parliamentary duties. Fox, in the presence of the company, asked if there was any charge against him; and he was told, in reply, that "as he," Colonel Kirkby, "was a gentleman, he had nothing against him. But," he added, "Mistress Fell must not keep great meetings at her house, for they meet contrary to the Act."[5] A few days later he was again apprehended and conveyed to Holker Hall, the residence of Justice Preston, the brave-hearted Margaret Fell accompanying him; when, after being examined, he was ordered to appear at the sessions at Lancaster. He then returned with Mrs. Fell to Swarthmoor; and shortly afterwards, while the Friends were peaceably assembled at a meeting in the hall, the door was opened, and William Kirkby, of Adgarley, a half-brother to Colonel Kirkby, entered with the constables, exclaiming, "How now, Mr. Fox! You have a fine company here!" and at once proceeded to take the names of those present; any who refused being handed over to the custody of the officers. This proceeding led to Margaret Fell herself being examined and committed for trial. Having traversed from the spring assizes, she was brought up on the 29th June, 1664, her chief offence being that of having had meetings for worship in her house at Swarthmoor. It would appear from the evidence she had received an intimation that, on her giving security to discontinue the meetings, the prosecution would be abandoned; and the offer was again made that, if she would give the required security, the case against her would be dismissed. But she refused, and the jury found for the King. A respite was allowed; but, she remaining obstinate, sentence of premunire was passed against her in September of the same year, and she was committed to prison, where she remained until the summer of 1668. Fox, who was also a prisoner for being a "rebel" and a dangerous character, was for a time more successful, his shrewdness and acumen enabling him to discover several errors in the indictment; but he was immediately questioned again, the oath was tendered and refused, and, being once more put upon trial, he traversed to the next assizes. The sufferings of both were very severe; each prisoner wrote an account of their trials, and the descriptions they give furnish some interesting particulars respecting the condition of the prison at Lancaster at the time. From the narrative of Margaret Fell it appears that, after her trial, the judge said:—"Mistress Fell, you wrote to me concerning your prisons, that they are bad and rain in, and are not fit for people to lie in; and (she says) I answered, the sheriff doth know, and hath been told of it several times; and now it is raining, if you will send to see, at this present, you may see whether they be fit for people to lie in or no. And Colonel Kirkby stood up and spoke to the judge to excuse the sheriff and the badness of the room, and I spoke to him, and said if you were to lie in it yourselves you would think it hard; but your minds is only in cruelty to commit others, as William Kirkby hath done, who hath committed ten of our friends, and put them into a cold room, where there are nothing but bare boards to lie on, where they have laid several nights, some of them old ancient men, above three score years of age, and known to be honest men in their country where they live. And when William Kirkby was asked why they might not have liberty to shift for themselves for beds, he answered and said, they were to commit them to prison, but not to provide prisons for them. And we asked him who should do it, then? and he said the King; and then the judge spoke to him, and said, they should not do so, but let them have prisons fit for men." George Fox also made [Pg 35] [Pg 36] [Pg 37] complaint. He says:—"I desired the judge to send some to see my prison, being so bad, they would put no creature they had in it, it was so windy and rainy; and so I was had away to my prison, and some justices, with Colonel Kirkby, went up to see it; and when they came up in it, they durst scarcely go in it, it was so bad, rainy, and windy, and the badness of the floor, and others that came up said it was ... I being removed out of the prison I was in formerly; and so Colonel Kirkby told me I should be removed from that place ere long." While lying in this deplorable state in the gaol at Lancaster, he says he was so starved with cold and rain that his body became greatly swelled, and his limbs much benumbed. Well might Macaulay say of those times, "The prisons were hells on earth, seminaries of every crime and of every disease. At the assizes the lean and yellow culprits brought with them from their cells to the dock an atmosphere of stench and pestilence which sometimes avenged them signally on bench, bar, and jury."

After some time Fox was transferred from Lancaster to the castle at Scarborough, where, during his incarceration, he was visited by the widow of General Fairfax. His condition there was no better than at Lancaster. The room in which he was placed, he says, "being to the seaside, and lying much open, drove in the wind forcibly, so that the rain came over my bed and ran over the room, that I was fain to skim it up with a platter. And when my clothes were wet I had no fire to dry them; so that my body was benumbed with cold and my fingers swelled, that one was grown as big as two." His friends were forbidden to supply him with any comforts, and he remarks, "Commonly a threepenny loaf served me three weeks and sometimes longer, and most of my drink was water with wormwood steeped or bruised in it."

After he had been two years in confinement an order for his release was obtained from the King, procured, as it would seem, through the influence of a friend at Court, one "Esquire Marsh," to whom he had been long known, and who declared that, if necessary, "he would go a hundred miles barefoot for the liberty of George Fox." He was set at liberty on Saturday, the 1st of September, 1666, and he notes in his Journal that "the very next day after my release (Sunday, September 3), the fire broke out in London and the report of it came quickly down into the country." The date is confirmed by the gossiping Secretary of the Navy, Samuel Pepys, who, as he tells us in his "Diary," on that said Sunday morning rose at three o'clock, slipped on his nightgown, and looked out of the window of his house in Seething Lane, at the east end of the city, but, thinking the fire far enough off, "went to bed again and to sleep."

After his release from a severe imprisonment of two years and nine months, Fox was greatly weakened in body, and it seemed at the time unlikely he could long survive the hardships he had had to endure. On his release, he thus moralises upon his oppressors:—"And, indeed, I could not but take notice how the hand of the Lord turned against those of my persecutors who had been the cause of my imprisonment, or had been abusive or cruel to me in it. For the officer that fetched me to Howlker Hall wasted his estate, and very soon after fled into Ireland. And most of the justices that were upon the bench at the sessions when I was sent to prison died in a while after," and, he adds, "when I came into that country again, most of those that dwelt in Lancashire were dead, and others ruined in their estates. So that, though I did not seek revenge upon them for their acting against me contrary to law, yet the Lord had executed his judgments upon many of them."

It was not until 1667 that George Fox again visited Lancashire. In that year he was at William Barnes's, near Warrington, whence he sent letters into Westmorland and other places by Leonard Fell and Robert Widders; monthly meetings of the Friends were held, and to one of them he says:—"Margaret Fell, being a prisoner, got liberty to come, and went with me to Jane Milner's in Cheshire, where we parted." In the summer of the following year (1668) Mrs. Fell was set at liberty, and, on regaining her freedom, went into Cornwall with her daughter Mary, and her son-in-law, Thomas Lower. Shortly afterwards Fox proceeded to Ireland, and on his return he met with Margaret Fell at Bristol, she being, at the time, on a visit to another married daughter, Isabel Yeomans. "I had seen from the Lord a considerable time before," says Fox, "that I should take Margaret Fell to be my wife, and when I first mentioned it to her, she felt the answer of Life from God thereunto. But, though the Lord had opened this thing to me, yet I had not received a command from the Lord for the accomplishment of it then. Wherefore I let the thing rest, and went on in the work and service of the Lord as before, according as he led me; travelling up and down in this nation and through Ireland." His conduct in respect to his marriage was honourable and disinterested. Before finally deciding, he consulted the seven daughters of his intended wife and her sons-in-law, and obtained their sanction to the proposal, and, further, took care that the provision for the children of Judge Fell was settled and secured before the marriage. The judge's son was the only member of the family who disapproved of the union, but, as he is described as irreligious and of irregular habits, his opinion was disregarded. In his Journal Fox thus records the attendant circumstances:—

But now, being at Bristol, and finding Margaret Fell there, it opened in me from the Lord, that the thing should be accomplished. After we had discoursed the matter together, I told her, "if she also was satisfied with the accomplishing of it now, she should first send for her children," which she did. When the rest of her daughters, were come, I asked both them and her sons-in-law, "if they had anything against it, or for it," and they all severally expressed their satisfaction therein. Then I asked Margaret (Mrs. Fell) "if she had fulfilled and performed her husband's will to her children." She replied, "the children knew that." Whereupon I asked them, "whether, if their mother married, they should not lose by it?" And I asked Margaret, "whether she had done anything in lieu of it, which might answer it to the children?" The children said she had answered it to them, and desired me to speak no more of it. I told them, he adds, "I was plain, and would have all things done plainly; for I sought not any outward advantage to myself." So, after I had thus acquainted the children with it, our intention of marriage was laid before the Friends, both privately and publicly, to their full satisfaction; many of them gave testimony thereunto that it was of God. Afterwards, a meeting being appointed for the accomplishing thereof, in the meeting-house, at Broadmead, in Bristol, we took each other, the Lord joining us together in the honourable marriage, in the everlasting covenant and immortal seed of life.

The marriage of George Fox with Margaret Fell, which took place on the 18th of October, 1669, eleven years after the death of Thomas Fell, occasioned very little interruption to Fox's ministerial activity. After a brief "honeymoon" of ten days they took leave of each other, he going on a religious mission through the country, while his wife returned to her own home at Swarthmoor.

A few months after Margaret Fox's return her old adversary, Colonel Kirkby, caused her to be again arrested and recommitted at the age of 56 to Lancaster Castle. "The Sheriff of Lancaster," she writes, "sent his bailiff and pulled me out of my own house, and had me prisoner to Lancaster Castle (upon the old _prÆmunire_[6]), where I continued a whole year, and most of that time I was sick and weakly." At length, in April, 1671, through the intercession of influential Friends, a discharge under the Great Seal was obtained and she was set at liberty, the sentence of prÆmunire passed seven years before being annulled. "Then," she says, "I was to go up to London again, for my husband was intending for America."

The founder of Quakerism had determined upon a voyage across the Atlantic for the purpose of organising the numerous Friends who had been gathered in the far West by the earlier Quaker preachers. In these days such a voyage is accounted as little more than a mere pleasure trip to those who like, or do not absolutely dislike the sea, but in the days of the Stuart Kings it was a serious undertaking; nothing, however, could daunt the spirit of Fox or obstruct his progress when once an enterprise was determined upon. On the 12th of June, 1671, the little yacht, the "Industry," with its living freight of fifty passengers, including Fox and the twelve preachers, who had agreed to accompany him on his mission, sailed down the Thames, Margaret Fox and several Friends going with them as far as Gravesend. On the voyage they were chased by Barbary pirates, and after their landing they underwent many perils and hardships, for travelling in the then primitive condition of the American colonies was arduous work, involving constant camping out at night, fording deep rivers, wading through swamps and quagmires, and penetrating vast forests and wildernesses. Fox was generally welcomed, and received more kindness and courtesy from all classes than in his own country. The journey occupied two years, and in one of his letters he thus summarises it: "We have had great travail by land and sea, and rivers and bays and creeks, in New England, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, Carolina; where we have had great service among Friends and governours and others, and with the Indians and their King and Emperor." On the 21st March, 1673, he set sail for England, and after a tempestuous voyage reached Bristol harbour on the 28th of the following month. His wife went up from Swarthmoor to meet him, accompanied by her son-in-law, Thomas Lower, and two of her daughters. It was the time of Bristol fair; great meetings were held, and the occasion was a memorable one, for it was amid the rant and turmoil of the fair that George Fox first made the acquaintance of William Penn. The great reformer had just landed from America, and there can be little doubt that this meeting led Penn to investigate human nature in the New World. A close intimacy sprang up between the two; they travelled much together, and in Fox's journal the name of the fearless and honest lawgiver—the future founder of Pennsylvania—is frequently mentioned. They visited at each other's houses. Fox was a guest at Worminghurst while Penn and his family resided there; and there is a well-founded tradition that he visited Fox at his abode at Swarthmoor, in Lancashire.

In January, 1674, Fox again found himself placed in durance on account of his preaching at Worcester; Thomas Lower, Margaret Fox's son-in-law, being imprisoned with him. He suffered from a lingering sickness, his life at one time being despaired of. After remaining in attendance upon him for seventeen weeks, his faithful wife went up to London, wrote a letter to the King beseeching him to release her husband, and took it herself to Whitehall, where she had an interview with Charles. Her pleading was unsuccessful; but eventually, after being in confinement for a year or more, a writ of Habeas Corpus was again obtained. He was paroled until the time of his trial, when the indictment against him was quashed, and he was set at liberty, being allowed to pass the remaining fifteen years of his life in peace, unmolested by gaolers, writs, or assizes. While he lay in the gaol at Worcester his aged mother died, her end being hastened, it is said, by bitter sorrow at her son's inability to come and take leave of her.

On regaining his liberty Fox returned northwards, accompanied by his wife. At Lancaster there was great gathering of the Friends; and having stayed there two nights and a day, they went over sands to Swarthmoor, where they arrived on the 25th of June, 1675. Here they were visited by many friends from different parts of the country, and among others their old antagonist, Colonel Kirkby, called to bid them welcome into the country, and, as the account says, "carried himself in appearance very lovingly;" though he immediately afterwards instructed the constables of Ulverston to inform Fox that "they must have no more meetings at Swarthmoor; for if they had, they were commanded to break them up." The imprisonment at Worcester had told seriously upon his health, and it was a year and eight months before he was again able to leave Swarthmoor. His time, however, was fully occupied in writing pamphlets, epistles, and controversial papers. Early in 1677 Fox left his northern home, his spirit being "drawn again towards the south;" and he did not return until the summer of the following year. In the interval, in company with William Penn and Robert Barclay, he spent several months preaching in Holland and Germany, after which he returned to London, where he stayed some time, and then proceeded to Swarthmoor, remaining there uninterrupted for a period of two years.

During his absence from Swarthmoor he vigilantly watched over his wife's interests, and took measures to protect her from the persecutions of some of the neighbouring clergy and magistrates. Thus, in a letter written from London on the 8th August, 1681, he says:—"Dearly Beloved,—There is a rumour here that one of the Justice Kirkbys (but which I cannot tell) took one of our fat oxen and killed him for his own table, in his own house, which ox was destrained and taken away from thee on account of your meeting at Swarthmoor. Now of the truth of this I desire to know, and, with a witness or two, to prove it; for justices of peace do not deny appeals here." And he concludes with the words: "Therefore, sweetheart, I do entreat thee to let me soon know the truth of all these things, and what thou writes let it be proved by witnesses."

It was in the same year that Fox and his wife were sued in the Cartmel Wapentake Court for the small tithes of the Swarthmoor Hall estate; he demurred to the jurisdiction of the court, when the plaintiffs carried the suit into the Exchequer Court at Westminster, where, he says, "they ran us up a writ of rebellion for not answering the bill upon oath, and got an order from the sergeant to take me and my wife into custody." In his answer to the plaintiffs' bill he stated that his wife had lived forty-three years at Swarthmoor Hall, and that during all that time no tithes had been either paid or demanded. Other proofs were given, but the answer could not be received without an oath, which the uncompromising Quaker would not take, and so, he says, "the court granted a sequestration against me and my wife together. Thereupon, by advice of counsel, we moved for a limitation, which was granted, and that much defeated our adversary's design in suing out the sequestration, for this limited the plaintiff from taking no more than was proved." On the same occasion William Mead, who had married one of Judge Fell's daughters, bore testimony to Fox's disinterested conduct, and informed the court that "he had before marriage engaged himself not to meddle with his wife's estate;" a statement the judges could scarcely credit until the documents in proof of it were produced.

Fox derived from his own property an income amply sufficient for his personal requirements without trenching upon that of his wife. Though he had never actively embarked in business he held shares in two small vessels trading from the port of Scarborough, and he had also an interest in other undertakings, besides moneys deposited in the hands of various friends. In addition, he had in Pennsylvania a thousand acres of land which were given to him by William Penn, though there is no evidence that he ever received any income from that source. The only lands he possessed were about three acres he had purchased at Swarthmoor for the maintenance of the meeting house, which, in 1688, the year of English freedom, he had there erected for his disciples, and which, shortly before his death, he conveyed by a deed of assignment to the Friends for ever. "It is," he says, "all the land and house I have in England; and it is given up to the Lord, for it is for his service, and for his children."

The declining years of his life were passed in comparative tranquillity, and its evening was soothed with the sunshine of many precious friendships. His time was spent chiefly either at Swarthmoor Hall or in London, where he had many followers, and where several meeting-houses had been established, the most notable being the one in Aldgate Street, named from its proximity to the celebrated old hostlery, the Bull and Mouth, now, as Mr. Cunningham justly says, "foolishly called the Queen's Hotel;"[7] and occasionally he made quiet journeys through some of the counties. In April, 1690, he was present for the last time at the annual gathering of the Friends from all parts of the kingdom, held in London; through the following winter he continued to attend the meetings of the society; and on Sunday, January the 11th, 1690-1, he attended a large meeting at Gracechurch Street, when he preached for the last time "fully and effectually." On leaving he went to Henry Goldney's in White Hart Court, close by, when he remarked that he "felt the cold strike to his heart as he came out of the meeting." He survived but two days, dying on Tuesday, January 13th, in the 67th year of his age, his last words being, "The power of God is over all." Three days after his remains, followed by a procession of 3,000 friends, were conveyed to their last resting place in that campo santo of Nonconformists—Bunhill Fields.

Fox lived long enough to see a considerable relaxation in the severity of the penal laws against Nonconformists, and the dawn of more peaceful times. After the accession of James II., the condition of the Quakers was much improved, the King permitting them to substitute an affirmation for the oath, when one of the chief causes of persecution was removed. William Penn, too, was high in favour at Court at this time; he had opened an asylum for the Friends in his new State of Pennsylvania, and, enjoying the personal favour of the King and the chief officers of the State, he won the means of securing further toleration for his co-religionists. Then followed the peaceful revolution which placed William of Orange upon the throne of England, when the rights of conscience were still more fully recognised, and the Act of Toleration put an end to the miseries and persecutions the Friends had so long been subjected to. If the Church was too severe in the punishments she awarded to her truant children, and oftentimes provoked them by her harshness to forsake the sanctuary and wander forth until new tabernacles sprang up in the wilderness of the world, it cannot be said that Quakers fared better under the sway of the Presbyterians or the rule of the Protectorate, for Puritanism itself was then a grinding social tyranny, too strict in its discipline, too little regardful of human weaknesses, and too fully persuaded that there could be no truth or godliness outside its own conceptions. Unfortunately for themselves, the Quakers were accounted a distinct community, with whom neither Episcopalians nor Protestant Dissenters had any legal or religious connection. The religious mind of the nation was entrenched within what it persuaded itself were the limits of Christianity, and the new sect which had sprung up was declared to be beyond the pale. The bitterness of spirit with which the disciples of Fox were regarded may be gathered from the resolution passed by the delegates and ministers of the Congregational churches in London who assembled on the occasion of the abdication of Richard Cromwell. They then declared, among other things, that while "we greatly prize our Christian liberties, yet we profess our utter dislike and abhorrence of a universal toleration, as being contrary to the mind of God in his word.... It is our desire that countenance be not given, or trust reposed in, the hands of the Quakers, they being persons of such principles as are destructive to the Gospel, and inconsistent with the peace of civil societies." It was a persecuting age, and not on one side alone of the great civil strife of the 17th century does the stigma of bigotry and intolerance remain; happily, out of the weakness, the foulness, and the darkness of those times, the nation, the Church, and the people have emerged with a strong hold on better things, the ascetic piety of the Puritan and the breadth of view of the Churchman—the religion of Herbert and of Laud, of Sibbes and of Milton—have mingled together and become elements of the national life and fruitful for the common good.

The followers of Fox were subjected to unparalleled hardships, but to their honour be it said their general acts were in strict accord with their religious professions, for during those long years of suffering for conscience sake there is not a single instance recorded of vindictive retaliation on their part, or of recourse being had to any weapon sharper than a text of Scripture. Fox, it is true, shared the extravagances of his age, and, like all teachers of his class and time, he was for a period more of an alarmist than a comforter; prone, like pious enthusiasts of the present day, to plough up the hearts of the people and discover sins which before they dreamt not of. In one respect he and his followers were certainly most reprehensible, in disturbing the worship of those differing in religion with themselves, for it must be admitted by those who respect their principles and admire their honesty and fortitude that they provoked much of the persecution they so patiently endured. The best principles of Quakerism—peace, and love, and brotherhood—remain, but the distinctive formula is on the decline, and those characteristics which made them obnoxious to other religious professors have disappeared altogether. As Dr. Halley justly observes, "A modern 'Friend,' mild, pleasant, neatly dressed, carefully educated, perfected in proprieties, is as unlike as possible, except in a few 'principles,' to the obtrusive, intolerant, rude, coarse, disputatious Quaker of the early days of their sect."[8]

Margaret Fox survived her husband 11 years, her death occurring at Swarthmoor on the 23rd February, 1702, in the 88th year of her age. At the time of her marriage with the Founder of the Society of Friends she had one son and seven daughters. Swarthmoor Hall, at her death, passed to her youngest daughter, Rachel, who had become the wife of Daniel, son of John Abraham, of Manchester; to them was born, in 1687, a son, John Abraham, who succeeded to the property, and who appears to have made some alterations and additions to the old mansion, as evidenced by a stone in the wall of one of the outbuildings, inscribed T F, 1651, and J A, 1715; the initials answering to Thomas Fell and John Abraham. Owing, as is supposed, to losses from some unsuccessful mining speculations in which John Abraham had embarked, the property became much encumbered, and in 1759, was finally brought to the hammer and disposed of in lots, when the family removed to Skerton, near Lancaster.

Of the descendants of Margaret Fox by her first husband, Thomas Fell, it was recorded a few years ago that there were then living ninety, of whom forty-three were members of the society which their ancestress had so largely helped to found.

Concerning John, the father of Daniel Abraham, who married the daughter of Margaret Fell, the following particulars are given in a publication called the British Friend, published at Glasgow, 1845:—

In Market Street (Manchester) is a pile of building called Abraham's Court. This was the property of John Abraham. He was a man of good parentage, and of standing and estate, of a family originally descended, it is said, from the Abrahams of Abram near Wigan; but his immediate ancestors resided at or near Warrington, where he was brought up to the trade of a grocer.[9] After his marriage he carried on his business in Manchester with great prudence and honesty, and to a large extent. He was one of the first who joined Friends, and suffered in the cause of truth. In 1675 he travelled southward. In Kent he was pulled down by the informers whilst preaching in a Friend's house, and taken to an inn with other Friends, but soon after dismissed: but the magistrate seized his horse, and two others, belonging to a poor man, which they ordered to be sold; the owner of the house was fined £20 for allowing the meeting to be held, and £7 for the pretended poverty of John Abraham, though he told them where he dwelt, and that he had an estate of his own at Manchester. For these fines, the owner of the house suffered distraint of goods from his house and warehouse to the amount of £77, equivalent to upwards of £150 in those days. No account of John Abraham has ever appeared. He was interred in the Deansgate burial ground; a stone marks his corporeal resting-place, and the Society's register of deaths records that "he was a minister, and travelled in Ireland and Scotland."

John Abraham had, in addition to his son, Daniel, a daughter, Mary, who became the wife of Edward Chetham, of Cheetham, Nuthurst, and, ultimately, of Turton Tower, the representative of Manchester's great benefactor, Humphrey Chetham, the founder of the hospital and library which bears his name, and from the marriage descends the present Right Hon. Sir Henry Bartle-Frere, Bart., G.C.B., G.C.S.I.

The third in descent from John Abraham, who removed to Skerton, was likewise named John; he married in 1844 Maria Hayes, daughter of John Tyerman, of Liverpool, and his wife, Mary Mitford. He resided at Grassendale, a pleasant suburb of Liverpool, and died February 20th, 1881, leaving as his heir Thomas Fell Abraham, and, with other issue, Emma Clarke Abraham, a lady to whom the author is indebted for many interesting particulars concerning the Fell and Abraham families.

Such are some of the memories of Swarthmoor. By the time we had completed the inspection of the old mansion and the primitive-looking little meeting-house, impressive in its severe and unostentatious simplicity, the sun was rapidly sinking in the west, and the shadows of objects were growing longer and longer, as if drawing themselves closer to the earth; the dark range of hills looked solemnly down upon us, and night's sable curtains were gradually closing over the scene. Turning to depart, we retraced our steps and descended the rugged track which soon brought us to the bottom of the dingle again. Then mounting the opposite eminence we reached the highway, and a few minutes later were comfortably settled in a cosy room in the "Sun," at Ulverston.

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